The government has dropped plans for an 80mph speed limit weeks after a minister said that trials could go ahead in 2014.

Patrick McLoughlin, the Conservative transport minister, has ruled out the initiative that was announced at the party conference in 2011, despite the enthusiasm of his junior minister, Stephen Hammond.

Hammond told Auto Express magazine that trials of the higher speed limit could be carried out in 2014, followed by its introduction nationwide if they are found to be successful.

"We are thinking about how we could trial it rather than go to a consultation. It would be important to have a good evidence-based trial," he said last week.

However sources close to McLoughlin told the Times: "This is not going to happen with Patrick McLoughlin as transport secretary. Safety is paramount to him and his view of how to run the roads and he would not be confident about how you would do it." The shadow transport secretary, Maria Eagle, said the government's plans were in chaos.

She said: "Only a week after the roads minister confidently claimed that trials of a new 80mph speed limit were to go ahead, it's clear that the secretary of state has applied the brakes on his own reckless policy."

In 2011, the then transport secretary Philip Hammond said the 70mph limit had been "discredited" and a rise to 80mph would boost the economy.

Downing Street is understood to believe that while the speed increase would be popular with motoring enthusiasts such as Jeremy Clarkson and fans of his TV show, Top Gear, they fear it could alienate some female voters.

Pressure groups campaigning under the name No to 80 estimated that raising the motorway speed limit to 80mph could cost society an extra £1bn a year, including £766m in fuel bills and more than £62m in health costs.

The groups, which include the road safety charity Brake, the Campaign for Better Transport and Greenpeace, also estimated that the higher limit would lead to 25 extra deaths and 100 serious injuries a year, as well as 2.2m more tonnes of carbon emissions.

Neil Greig, director of research and policy and research at the Institute of Advanced Motorists, said that the transport ministry was sending out confused messages. "With a little imagination and some investment the Dutch have shown that you can have a safe 80mph limit on the best parts of the motorway network.

"What Patrick McLoughlin has learned from Holland, however, is that the policy was not as popular as the politicians thought it would be and they promptly lost the next election."